Is anyone here CCNA certified?

[Maromi]

I’m about to start studying for my CCNA and shadowing our networking department and I’m pretty nervous about it, since it’s gonna be a big career change for me. I’ve done helpdesk support about 6 years and looking for others that support networks or others that have gone into the networking field and could share what your experience was like going into that field.


I currently do VMware support for all the VMware products and trying to figure out if this is going to be more or less software to support.

Thank you!

 

[AJFan2020]

Not yet but I hope to take and pass this exam sometime in the next year before the official exam syllabus changes.

I have not yet performed any enterprise-level networking. My current certifications are some entry-level ones. I know how to set up home and small office networks and how to do some basic Wi-Fi setup. I also know some of the basics of how to use Oracle’s VirtualBox.

 

[babyamelia]

I have passed the CCNA in the past and my certificate just lapsed a couple years ago. If you have been working in helpdesk and with virtualization for 6 years, then basic networking with Cisco seems like a logical career progression to me. What makes you nervous? If it helps and you have any questions, I have 13 years of networking and network security experience.

 

[LittleAndAlone]

I studied for it but never took it. I'm doing CCIE level stuff and still probably couldn't pass CCNA right now cold. But since I have rep and tenure and experience now Ive stopped caring about certs.

I've heard stories that make me too chicken to attempt the lab exam.

These certs just covers so much stuff that may or may not be applicable and Im bad with memorizing things I don't do hands on just to memorize them for a test with no practical purpose. The old joke was frame relay in CCNA but at least they finally took that out and replaced it with MPLS and BGP.

 

[LittleAndAlone]

I'd say go for it. For me working proprietary embedded systems is more fun than VMware where you're mostly playing Windows support desk 80% of the time. I can't stand desktop operating systems anymore.

It's not going to be much less software support though. Routers switches and firewalls go EOL, crash because of bugs and need continuous code updates, open ssh vulnerabilities and retired crypto algos, new VPN client rollout to support a new feature to address a vuln, it's a never ending battle. It's a different kind of software support though than dealing with poorly programmed third party desktop applications and navigating things "not responding" in Windows running on hard drives and such.

If you can manage to stay away from desktop operating system support (Windows, Linux, including servers) and stick strictly to being a VMware expert either that or networking are a wash for career choices and compensation. By that I mean you only do things in vmware and storage and never log into a guest OS. Ideally do both (esxi and network) and throw some firewall in there too and move to where you can design whole data centers and you'll be set for life.

If you are the kind of nerd who likes programming, looking at packet dumps, can do binary and hex arithmetic in your head, and like reading RFCs and analyzing protocols for fun, you'll love networking.

I will say though what you know on paper and how many certs you have doesn't mean much in this field. Having a working brain, being able to make sense out of numbers on a screen, and being curious and intuitive and being able to analyze and apply scientific method and dig deep under the hood and troubleshoot things youve never seen before under pressure. Troubleshooting on your feet while staying cool like a air traffic controller with 200 people on the call watching and knowing you are the end game is the most valuable skill you can have. You need to have passion for technology and exploration and debugging and be confident in telling people "I've never seen this before and have no idea what's wrong but I'll explain it in 5 minutes after I fix it".

There is no shortage of overconfident network engineers who know how things are suppose to work academically on the surface when a script goes 100% according to plan but can't troubleshoot themselves out of wet toilet paper the one time it doesn't.

 

[Maromi]

I'd say go for it. For me working proprietary embedded systems is more fun than VMware where you're mostly playing Windows support desk 80% of the time. I can't stand desktop operating systems anymore.

It's not going to be much less software support though. Routers switches and firewalls go EOL, crash because of bugs and need continuous code updates, open ssh vulnerabilities and retired crypto algos, new VPN client rollout to support a new feature to address a vuln, it's a never ending battle. It's a different kind of software support though than dealing with poorly programmed third party desktop applications and navigating things "not responding" in Windows running on hard drives and such.

If you can manage to stay away from desktop operating system support (Windows, Linux, including servers) and stick strictly to being a VMware expert either that or networking are a wash for career choices and compensation. By that I mean you only do things in vmware and storage and never log into a guest OS. Ideally do both (esxi and network) and throw some firewall in there too and move to where you can design whole data centers and you'll be set for life.

If you are the kind of nerd who likes programming, looking at packet dumps, can do binary and hex arithmetic in your head, and like reading RFCs and analyzing protocols for fun, you'll love networking.

I will say though what you know on paper and how many certs you have doesn't mean much in this field. Having a working brain, being able to make sense out of numbers on a screen, and being curious and intuitive and being able to analyze and apply scientific method and dig deep under the hood and troubleshoot things youve never seen before under pressure. Troubleshooting on your feet while staying cool like a air traffic controller with 200 people on the call watching and knowing you are the end game is the most valuable skill you can have. You need to have passion for technology and exploration and debugging and be confident in telling people "I've never seen this before and have no idea what's wrong but I'll explain it in 5 minutes after I fix it".

There is no shortage of overconfident network engineers who know how things are suppose to work academically on the surface when a script goes 100% according to plan but can't troubleshoot themselves out of wet toilet paper the one time it doesn't.

Thank you for the input, I appreciate it.